CELEBRATING SIR FRANCIS BEAUFORT
THIS SUMMER has had a lot of hot air, everywhere from Washington, D.C., to Helsinki, and back. This got me thinking of how we measure its forceful expenditures. Add to … Continue reading
HURRAH FOR SCIENCE—AND THE HUMANITIES!
THERE’S EXCELLENT reason to promote STEMM and HACD. As unwieldy as it appears, STEMMHACD (Science, Technology, Engineering, Mathematics, Medicine, Humanities, Arts, Crafts, and Design) can play an essential role in … Continue reading
AN ENLIGHTENING T-SHIRT
I LEARN something every day. Well, sorta every day. Recent enlightenment came when I solved a personal sartorial shortcoming by ordering new T-shirts from March for Science. The March for … Continue reading
THE TRAGEDY/SUCCESS OF THE COMMONS
WHAT FOLLOWS is a brief account of a philosophical concept in the social sciences. My account is brief for two reasons: I haven’t the space here nor the depth of … Continue reading
FUEL CELLS ON THE ROAD—AND ALOFT
HERE’S AN update on fuel cells in several applications. These electrochemical devices, relatively new on the road, have produced electricity in extraterrestrial vehicles for decades. Indeed, the Gemini and Apollo … Continue reading
ALLOMETRY, THOMPSON, AND THE BRAIN
ISN’T IT fascinating how one thing leads to another? An article on whales in The New York Times jogs my memory about D’Arcy Thompson, a scientist whose work got me … Continue reading
A MOTOR TOUR OF THE MULTIVERSE
THERE ARE three basic states of matter: solid, liquid, and gas. Even in today’s more deeply revealed world of quantum physics, these distinctions still apply. In fact, Science, the weekly … Continue reading
WHAT’S A TELEX, GRANDPA?
QUITE APART from many young people seemingly not knowing how to do long division in any sensible way, they’ve also been known to ask things like “How does a dial … Continue reading
EVOLUTION EVOLVES TOO
IF EVOLUTION’S clock were wound back and restarted, would I be here to compose these lines or you to read them? This provocative question is addressed in Jonathan Losos’ book … Continue reading
THE TREE(S) OF LIFE
HOW COME tree-of-life diagrams always have humans at the top? A heady thought, this. There are subtleties galore in today’s evolutionary theory. Indeed, profound changes are taking place in how … Continue reading
